Saturday, 26 September 2009

Watched Inside this evening a new French horror thriller aka A L' Interiuer, starring art house actress Beatrice Dalle and AlyssonParadis.

Paradis plays a young depressed pregnant woman who after being in a car accident and loosing her husband is all alone. On the eve of giving birth she is visited by an unknown woman, Dalle, who has intentions of taking Paradis's unborn child at any cost.

Incredibly violent this is not for the faint hearted.

The gore FX are very realistic using a mix of prosthetics and CGI the scene at the end even had me peering out from behind my hands.

The tension really cranks up as Paradis fights for her life and possession of her unborn child, as rescuer after rescuer is dispatched by Dalle.

If you enjoyed Haute Tension,aka Switchblade Romance, you will love this.

Thursday, 24 September 2009

New from Titan books comes this 160 page full colour hardback on the ladies of Hammer Films.

I've hardly seen any of the pictures featured in the book and as a massive fan of Hammer that is a big plus,the quality is simply outstanding.

Writer Marcus Hearn has done a fantastic job in assembling this package with interesting biogs of each actress featured and for a change not every movie is held up in lights,if its a dog it actually says so.

Well worth the money, cheapest place to buy is wwww.thebookdepository.co.uk

Love Danny Boyle's Sunshine but heard it was only as good as DVD in quality so been putting it off to buy until today when I saw it for £9.99 and decided to take the risk.

So glad I did,the transfer is amazing, so much better than DVD,the colours so rich and the blacks blacker.No digital pixelating on the effects like the DVD either.The sound is totally immersing with the bass giving the sub a good work out.

Extra features are not much different from the DVD.

This is a quality film and my reservations about 20Th Century Fox movie transfers has been lifted for now.

Jaws stopped me going in the sea for life and I find it hard to watch Chainsaw due to the amount of screaming. I hate women screaming in films. The worst film on the list is Last House.I will never watch it again,bloody horrible,cruel movie.Not a fan of violence against women slasher type stuff at all,and the older I get the less tolerant I am of it too.

Amazingly in all the years I've been a Hammer fan I've never watched Taste The Blood Of Dracula.

Wasn't sure what I was going to see as this is heading towards the end of the Hammer Dracula cycle of films so was pleasantly surprised.

Three gents are bored with their sexual experiences and get word of a bankrupt aristocrat, the wonderful Ralph Bates,can give them a new experience like thy never had.

He takes them to see curios shop keeper Roy Kinear,he witnessed Dracula's death at the end of the previous Dracula film,and has The Counts Cape,clasp and dried blood.

At a satanic ceremony Bates tries to get the three gents to drink re-hydrated Drac blood but they refuse in terror so Bates drinks it and tuns into Count Dracula.

As they refused Dracula possesses their daughters,the lovely Linda Hayden amongst them,and uses them to help kill the gents sons and ultimately the gents themselves.

Linda's forbidden boyfriend however gets to the church where Drac hangs out replaces a couple of candles and with the help of two crucifixes and what I presume is the hand of God destroys Dracula,whilst he and Linda escape to live happily ever after.

Chris Lee is wasted as Dracula his screen time is mere minutes and only speaks a few lines.

The rest of the cast take it all seriously which is part of the reason Hammer worked so well.

Still the DVD transfer was good and was entertaining enough, but the cracks are beginning to show on Hammers out put of the 70's.

If you buy the Region 1 version of this movie you can get Taste together with Horror,Risen from the Grave and AD 1972 all in one package for under a fiver.

Was taken buy the trailer for the movie and really enjoyed Tarsam's previous effort The Cell.

Basically a little girl in hospital with a broken arm meets an injured actor/stuntman and she is transported via the story he tells her into her imagined version of the story placing various people she sees in the specific roles.

Visually amazing,the colours really spring alive on Blu-Ray but ultimately I found the story pretty vacuous, so on to Amazon shops it goes.

Thursday, 17 September 2009

Today I've watched Let The Right One In,a Swedish horror film directed by Tomas Alfredson,based on the book by John AdjvideLinqvist, who adapted his own screenplay.

This slow burn horror,more of an vampiric Edward Sisscorhands style fairy tale than full on horror.

Sickly schoolkid Oskar,all white and pale and bullied by his schoolmates meets a strange large eyed girl one night when sitting outside his home.

Turns out shes a vampire with her own man-servant who goes out at night to collect blood for her to feed upon.

This soon changes however and Eli has to start feeding for herself.

The two soon care for each other with Eli coming go toOskars rescue.

The film is more about their relationship than an out and out horror,though there are gorey moments but no more terrifying than Jaws.This is not torture horror and I think the trailer amps up the action/horror more than it is,miss selling what you are going to see.

Tuesday, 15 September 2009

First published in 1990 it has lived a life of 140 issues,no mean feat.

I was thinking of dumping it anyway as it continued to roll out the same old video nasties stuff again and again and focused heavily on independent horror,not anything wrong with that just not my cup of tea anymore.

It's rumored to be searching a new publisher,and if it could resurrect as a Sci-fi Now style horror mag it would be hard to resist.